You’ve put time and money amazing family photos that you love! Now what?

I received an awful email today. A wedding client from 2007 lost her wedding photos in a natural disaster. Thankfully I found a back up copy on CD-R but it prompted me to think more deeply about how we can protect our family histories for future generations to see, know and love.

Here are my thoughts as a photographer for 20+ years, having seen the medium go from film to digital and having lost countless files to the follies of ever-changing tech.

#1. downloading – do it now!

If you have purchased or received files from your photographer, DOWNLOAD NOW.

Not tomorrow, not next week but now!

You wouldn’t leave the groceries you bought at the cash register would you? Think of it like that and you won’t go wrong.

If your photographer has given you access to both low and high resolution files, here’s the basic difference:

Low resolution files are small and therefore the ones you want to keep on your phone or load to social media. These will save you precious device space and upload faster while also looking better on the web.

High resolution files are large files upwards of 5M each and should be used for printing.

As for best practices? See #6 (but I’m going to make you read about printing first! (Mwaah ha ha!)

#2. Make prints from your files ASAP

Here’s everybody’s story: you get your photos back from your photographer and you are so excited to do things with them! But life is busy this week so you’ll get to it next week. Suddenly work is on fire so it will have to next week, but then the dog ate another hockey sock and needs surgery so now it’s next week and so on and so on and now the kids are in college.

Here’s why you should make it a priority: you’ll feel the way you first felt when you saw a beautiful photo of your family EVERY SINGLE TIME you see it. So why not frame that shot and look at it, feeling all the good feelings, often?

The crazier thing: our kids will grow up to be far more visually literate than we will ever be – which means that they make meaning out of the images they see. Seriously, my kids’ first texts weren’t even words, they were memes. You know that saying, “control the narrative?” Hanging photos that center your relationships will affirm what they already know about belonging, being loved and being acknowledged as important.

So do it… whether its a framed print or a book, make sure everyone in your family sees your photos often.

If you purchase all your files from me you’ll receive a print product of your choice as part of your package! I practice what I preach because I know you won’t have time to do it yourself . Its very important to me that you experience your unique photos in print, not just as 0’s and 1’s!

So plan #1? Get those files to the end game!

#3. you can always read a print

Most of us are backing up our phones and that’s great! But what if the data we’re backing up can’t be read at some point?

I say this because my college thesis is on a floppy and only a fraction of you know what a floppy is and exactly zero people, including myself, will ever know what I wrote my thesis on because the medium is obsolete and unreadable.

I assume JPEGs will exist for quite awhile but you know what they say about “assuming” in a fast moving tech world.

So this is another case for making prints asap!

Plus, my grandparents wedding photos are hanging on my wall and they are almost 100 years old!

Color printing hasn’t been archival until fairly recently, meaning that your prints, if properly made (see #5), could last as long as their selenium toned black and white silver gelatin ones of my grandparents! Finally! Unfortunately my own baby pictures are a soft-focus, color-shifted mess but your babies will see their faces clearly.

Technology is always moving and we don’t know what tomorrow will bring. Digital files are very important but this I know: you’ll always be able to see, experience and reproduce a print.

Want to work with me to get a gallery wall on display in your home? Click here and let’s get started…

#4. Never store printed works in basements, attics or garages

Photographs are temperature and light sensitive and prefer consistent temperatures, dry air and UV light protected spaces.

Basements are great places for storage but never keep valuable, irreplaceable artwork there. Basements are more prone to flooding and plumbing disasters so keep albums and stored prints above ground level. If you hang your prints on a wall, they are far less likely to encounter water damage.

Similarly, do not rely on storage spaces that aren’t temperature controlled! Fluctations in temperature can harm the longevity of your prints.

#5. go archival from the get-go

Thanks to the proliferation of giclee printing and other advanced inkjet processes, we can count on printed beauty to last without fading or color shifting but only if its been printed with archival ink on archival, acid free paper. Its so important to invest in a well-made print from the start.

When framing a photo, be sure the matting and any tape is acid free and the glass/plexi has a UV coating to protect your artwork from sunlight. Side note: you’re not going to find these materials cheap.

Trust your photographer and Invest in professional printing and framing to be sure you are receiving the best print quality and protective materials. Store anything you haven’t framed in acid free archival boxes. I have trusted this company for over two decades with mine….

Are you interested in converting the files we took to books? Reach out here!

#6 cloud, baby

OK, with all my pro-printing advice out there, let’s get back to digital files!

Hard drives are fine for short term storage but should never be the end destination or the only destination.

Files can be lost in hardware updates as you upgrade computers. Plug and play external drives sound like a great idea but as connections and power sources change, they’re not reliable for long term storage. (This has happened to me, tragically, so many times. Do you remember FireWire? If not, now you know that USB-C is not forever. Its awful to know exactly where your files are but not to be able to access them without the cost of a recovery service.)

For long term storage I recommend paid services like Google Photos, Amazon Photos, Dropbox or Microsoft Azure.

Its important to understand that cloud-based solutions are physical servers in actual locations. Unfortunately it can be hard to know exactly where the server is when you utilize a service and for that reason, I recommend using more than one since the likelihood is that physical servers are not at the same location.

For family archives, check out permanent.org, this incredible non-profit gives you free space up to 1G and allows you to store photos, documents and more to create a permanent family archive that all your family members can contribute to and you can assign legacy because no one is going to be around to steward them forever.

Last, don’t rely on printing services to archive your photos – they frequently go under or get bought up so your files be lost in transition.

#7. Don’t rely on your photographer to archive your files

Most of us have an archival system in place. Those of us who sell files often share through online galleries but we must continually clear space on the server for new sessions.

Moreover, we’re human. In addition to making mistakes, we move, we change careers and things can happen to us just like things can happen to you.

Don’t wait to purchase artwork from us: ask for our help if you are stuck on choices, don’t try and “cheap out” or push things off – childrens’ identity and personal history is powerful so please let us help you preserve them!

Special thanks to Lori Eaton, archivist and mystery novelist, who shared great advice to help me write this!

Are you ready to tell your kids their family story? Reach out here and let’s get started!

what can you feel about my family’s values from the photos we display? We love our animals, snuggling, laughter, owning our real emotions and we love to explore and adventure together. Having a consistent visual reminder of who we are helps us show up as our best, truest selves for each other. (Plus it reminds us that life is good!)